Jim Cramer grew up in the town of Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. He went to Springfield Township High School. He learned the value of a dollar by selling ice cream at Veterans Stadium during Philadelphia Phillies games. Cramer graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1977 where he was an editor of the Harvard Crimson. After college, he worked as a journalist at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He went back to school to get a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School and, after graduating in 1984, went to work in Goldman Sachs’ Sales & Trading department.



In 1987, he started his own hedge fund company, Cramer Berkowitz. After a stellar 2000, Cramer’s fund finished up the year +36%, compared to -11% for the S&P 500 and -6% for the Dow Industrials. Cramer then retired from the hedge fund business, turning the company to his long-time partner, Jeff Berkowitz. While Cramer’s success in producing high returns for his fund was unmistakeable, he began to concentrate on his passion for journalism.



He co-founded TheStreet.com and is the Markets Commentator and Advisor to the CEO, Thomas Clarke, Jr., and went on to work at CNBC, where he was a host on America Now and Kudlow & Cramer with Lawrence Kudlow. He now has a radio show called RealMoney Radio and his own television show focused on stocks, Mad Money with Jim Cramer. He exhibits his encyclopedic knowledge of equity securities during the “Lightning Round” segment on Mad Money where he quickly analyzes stocks suggested by callers. One of the popular catchphrases on the Mad Money is “Booyah,” which seems to have taken the form of a greeting as well as an enthusiastic celebration. Also popular is his ritual of throwing his chair across the studio before the Lightning Round. Thanks to his energetic rhetoric, his insightful analysis of stocks, and his off-the-wall antics, Mad Money has become CNBC’s most popular show.



In 1988, Cramer married his wife, Karen, whom he refers to as the “Trading Goddess” (Karen was a professional trader herself; Cramer claims that she earned the nickname before the two met). Karen stopped trading full-time after the birth of their first child in July 1991. They currently live in Summit, New Jersey, with their two daughters.